Editorial: An 8-year-old with disabilities does not belong in handcuffs

Published 5:11 pm, Friday, August 7, 2015

Photo: File Photo

Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

Handcuffs.

Handcuffs.

Photo: File Photo

Editorial: An 8-year-old with disabilities does not belong in handcuffs

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

The boy is 8 years old. He stands 3 1/2 feet tall and weighs 52 pounds. He has learning disabilities and post-traumatic stress disorder. Those facts are all a reasonable person needs to know: Handcuffing such a fragile little boy should be unthinkable. Unfortunately, and rather incredibly, neither a Kentucky sheriff’s deputy nor his boss recognized just how repugnant the actions were when shackles were used to punish this and another equally vulnerable young child.

The American Civil Liberties Union, filing a federal lawsuit on behalf of the two children, seeks to stop a practice that is unnecessary, excessive and allegedly in violation of federal and state laws prohibiting the forceful restraint of children unless there is an imminent and real threat to their own or someone else’s safety.

Buttressing the group’s arguments is a disturbing video of the 8-year-old boy being handcuffed last fall at his elementary school by a man the ACLU identifies as a Kenton County deputy sheriff. The boy, whose disabilities make it difficult for him to pay attention and follow directions, is crying and gasping: “My arm!,” “Oww, oww,” “that hurts.” The incident lasted about 15 minutes and because the handcuffs are designed for adults, the boy was bound on his biceps above the elbows. Similar treatment, the lawsuit alleged, was inflicted twice on a 9-year-old girl diagnosed with a mental disorder. She weighed 56 pounds.

Clearly neither child posed a threat, but that didn’t stop Sheriff Charles Korzenborn from doubling down with an unapologetic defense of the deputy for doing “what he is sworn to do.” Why someone so obviously not properly trained to deal with emotionally disturbed children has been entrusted as a school resource officer with their safety and security is one of the issues that we hope will be addressed, if not by the court then surely by the school community. The effect of this deputy’s alleged action was to exacerbate diagnosed conditions of children who go to school to get help.

Troublingly, what happened in Kentucky is not unique but reflective of the way too many schools deal with students with disabilities. ACLU officials cited federal data showing that about 52,500 children with disabilities each year are subjected to physical restraint, with mechanical restraints such as handcuffs used on almost 4,000 of them. There will be rare instances in which safety demands a student be restrained. But slapping cuffs on small children who misbehave or don’t do what they’re told is, as the ACLU said, “not okay.” It’s barbaric.